The use of inkjet printers has grown dramatically in recent years. The inkjet printers now offer acceptable print quality for many office and household applications. This trend may be attributed to substantial improvements in print resolution and overall print quality coupled with appreciable reduction in cost. Despite of such recent accomplishment, intensive development efforts continue toward further improvement in inkjet print quality.
Conventionally, inkjet printers and copying apparatuses with inkjet printer are provided with maintenance functions such as head cleaning and capabilities for adjusting the position of printhead and recording sheet, which may be accessible to a user.
Nakamura (Japanese Laid-Open Patent Application No. 2001-205816 assigned to Ricoh) discloses a wiping mechanism for wiping off ink and dirt from the nozzle face (ink ejecting face) of printhead.
Okamoto et al. (Japanese Laid-Open Patent Application No. 2000-1492 assigned to Brother) discloses a cleaning device including a wiping unit and a cap unit for covering the face of ink ejection, with a simple structure capable of improving the efficiency of ink absorption to an adhering blade.
Endo et al. (Japanese Laid-Open Patent Application No. 2000-200240 assigned to Canon) discloses a user authentication system for a multifunctional peripheral device and system, which is accessible by only certified users according to a user authentication table and an access control table.
Men (Japanese Laid-Open Patent Application No. 2003-263287 assigned to Canon) discloses an inkjet printer capable of setting conditions for each user, which is easy to operate for different users preventing operational errors.
Sasai et al. (Japanese Laid-Open Patent Application No. 10-202917 assigned to Seiko Epson) discloses an inkjet printer which is provided with a capping means and a pump for drawing ink by suction through a printhead after closing airtight once and is capable of implementing a flushing action by ejecting ink from nozzles. In the case when the period in suspend mode exceeds a predetermined time when a source power switched on, an automatic cleaning is performed. If a cleaning instruction switch CS is operated, a printhead is driven to the location of cleaner unit and its nozzle plate is wiped off. Thereafter, the printhead is driven further to a capping position, and then capped to eject ink from the nozzles through drawing by suction under a negative pressure.
Although the aforementioned maintenance functions and adjustment capabilities of inkjet printer are useful and necessary means, several cautions may be needed concerning (1) an unduly large amount of ink used for the head cleaning, and (2) a degradation in print quality caused by poor head adjustment. It is therefore desirable for the maintenance and adjustment works to be carried out only by a qualified (or authorized) person such as an administrator.
For the inkjet printers operated by a person or by shared by a relatively small number of people through sharing, the abovementioned has not been essential until recently because of the familiarity of these sharing users. In the recent situations, however, where an inkjet printer is accessible by unspecified users and by the person other than the qualified, various problems have been encountered concerning the control and maintenance of the inkjet printer as mentioned above.